Pacific Rim - Strange Allies
by Darkpenn
Summary: Newton, Hermann, Dee and Elle find themselves caught in a savage whirlpool of events.


**Strange Allies**

_Newton, Hermann, Dee and Elle find themselves caught in a savage whirlpool of events._

_[Author's Note: This story follows the story_ Probably Impossible … In Theory._]_

Newton Geiszler and Hermann Gottlieb were deep in discussion-cum-argument, bent over a desk covered in papers. They were in Newton's lab/office in the Kaiju Science Corporation building. Dee and Elle were seated on a couch in the corner, reading through the latest reports from Iceland.

There was the sound of a jetcopter going past the window, heading towards the pad on the top of the building. Nothing unusual about that; it happened all the time.

A few minutes passed. Then Dee stopped reading. She looked around.

Elle had also stopped reading.

Both women stood up. They drew their pistols.

There was an explosion that blew the door to fragments. Newton, Hermann, Dee and Elle were all thrown to the floor. The two women were on their feet in a moment, guns up and ready.

A troop of men crashed into the room, machine guns levelled.

Then a woman in a tight silk dress entered, stepping over the remains of the smashed door. She flicked a fragment of plaster from her cropped hair.

"You again," said Elle. "Dee, meet Natasha, Hannibal Chau's bimbo and gofer."

"I am pleased to meet you, Ranger Delacroix," said Natasha. "I suppose I could tell you both to put down your guns or my men will kill all of you, but that's not really why I'm here."

She gestured to two of her men, and they helped Newton and Hermann to their feet.

"If you're here to try to get us to make a Breach for Chau, we can tell you that it can't be done," said Newton.

"We've done the maths," said Hermann.

"I wouldn't know about the science part," said Natasha. "But I know that Hannibal is determined to try. And Hyram Forsythe is helping him."

"Oh," said Newton. "That's … not good. The Kaiju Church actually has some smart people. Not great, but not bad."

"You mean, not in your class," said Natasha.

"I … wouldn't necessarily say that … " said Newton.

"I would," said Hermann.

"Well, if pushed, I guess I would too," said Newton.

"That's what I thought," said Natasha. "But it's going to happen. In a few hours, in fact. I … I … would like you to be there. In case … something goes wrong."

"Huh," said Dee.

"We're guessing that your visit here isn't exactly official Chau business," said Elle.

Natasha said nothing. She looked at the two women for a long moment.

"But you don't want to see Hannibal vapourised or whatever," said Dee.

"Because he's your boss?" said Newton.

"Uh … no … that's … not the reason … " said Natasha. She studied the floor.

Then she looked up at Newton and Hermann.

"Please," she said softly. "There's not much time."

Dee holstered her gun. "Let's go," she said.

"Uh, you two plan to come as well?" said Natasha to Elle and Dee. "Why?"

"We're married to them," said Elle.

Natasha started a little.

"Yes, it kind of surprises us too," said Newton.

"The heart wants what the heart wants," said Dee.

"Yes," said Natasha. "That it does." She sighed. "Come on, then, we have a jetcopter on the roof."

"Where are we going?" said Hermann.

"Japan," said Natasha.

* * *

"Japan is sacred ground to us," said Hyram Forsythe. "It was here that the first Kaiju displayed their true power and demonstrated their mission."

"Whatever," said Chau. "Are your guys ready to start it up?"

"In a few minutes," said Sister Onibaba. "It is not a simple operation. The reactor has not operated for many years, not since Japan was abandoned. Our people have been working to re-start it for over six months."

"Did you know that the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant was the largest in Japan?" said Forsythe. "Fortunately, there was a good deal of fuel stored here. Soon, the plant will provide as much power as we need."

Chau nodded. He looked around. They were in a huge room, apparently responsible for the management of the reactor. At the moment, there was a lot of his men standing around, trying to look as if they were doing something, not just waiting to pull out guns and start shooting. There would be plenty of targets, when the time came. The Kaiju Church adherents were easy to spot in their monk-like clothes, many of them attending to various screens and consoles.

He looked at the Kaiju, secured to the floor, held immobile, by chains and ropes. Ugly s.o.b., even by Kaiju standards. It snarled when it saw him. Chau was glad that the creature was held by cilia ropes, fibres found in Kaiju lung tissue. The ropes, incredibly strong but flexible, were held together by cytophlegm, a form of Kaiju mucal secretions which, when properly treated, could be used as a powerful adhesive.

Against one wall of the room was a massive piece of Kaiju armour. It had come from Scimitar, one of the first Category Twos. Those Southern Line guys, in Furies, had taken it down near Perth, in the early stages of the Kaiju Wars. Chau had been told by his scientists that the slab of armour, several metres thick, would be perfect as a conductor.

On the either side of the room was a machine that his tech guys called a Multi-phase Projector, hooked to a control console. Chau had no idea what that actually meant, sounded like it was out of some damn television show. But they, and the Church scientists as well, had assured him that it would do the job. It had better, he thought, or the techs were likely to find themselves holding onto a greasy rope over a very deep pit.

Then there was TDV, the Trans-Dimensional Vehicle – another title from a movie or something, Chau thought. Half-hovercraft, half-jetcopter, this was the ticket to the mother lode. Driven by two pilots who were being paid a truly staggering amount of money – they were making some last-minute adjustments to the TDV now – it would go through the portal, grab everything that wasn't nailed down, and zip back out. Easy peasy Japanesey. The best plans, thought Chau, were ones that were simple and gave him a great deal of money. He had poured a lot of cash into this enterprise, many millions of dollars. The return would be chunks of stuff directly from the Anteverse. Customers would go nuts for it. He could name his price.

From within the bowels of the reactor, there was a deep rumble. The power lines leading to the reactor began to pulse with energy.

"Coming online … now," said Sister Onibaba. She was standing at the computer console which controlled the reactor functions. Forsythe was next to her.

There was a flash of light from the projector.

There was another Churcher tech at a computer console near the Kaiju. "Hive mind frequency established," he said. "Linkage to Anteverse established, focus point stable."

"Do it!" shouted Forsythe. "Praise the Kaiju!"

A beam of light flashed out of the projector and into Ursu. The creature howled in pain. Then the light leaped out of the Kaiju and onto the slab of armour.

The surface of the armour seemed to shimmer. Dissolve. There was a sound from beneath the reactor, like the wheels of the world grinding together.

_Good thing I brought the shades_, thought Chau, adjusting his sunglasses as he stared into the light forming on the armour. The surface appeared to be flexing somehow, pushing towards the Anteverse.

The door of the control room opened. Natasha, with Hermann, Newton, Elle and Dee burst in.

"Natasha!" said Hannibal, when he saw her. "I was wondering where you got to! Thought you were going to miss the show." He looked at the others. "Huh," he said. "You guys."

"Boss, you have to stop this," said Natasha. "These two know more about this stuff than anyone, and they say that – "

"It can't be stopped!" shouted Forsythe. "It's going to happen!"

Newton and Elle ran to the computer console, Elle pushing aside Forsythe and Sister Onibaba. Newton looked at the figures and schematics moving down the screen.

"Oh no," he said. "No stabilising mechanism, no buffers, nothing. This is _meant_ to go wrong."

The air of the room seemed to be charged with static electricity. Objects were beginning to vibrate. From the slab of armour, there was a series of booms, growing in intensity with the light.

Chau gestured to his men, pointing at the Churchers. The goons drew their guns. Chau drew his own.

"I wish I could say that I'm sorry this partnership is ending," he said to Forsythe, pointing his pistol at him. "But I'm not."

Sister Onibaba stepped in front of Forsythe. She opened her jacket.

She was wearing an explosives belt. There was a red light flashing. Then the flashing stopped.

Elle grabbed Newton and threw him behind a computer console, leaping after him.

Natasha launched herself at Chau, knocking him aside.

The bomb went off, blowing the control console to pieces. At the same time, several other Churchers detonated their bombs. In a moment, the room was full of smoke and flying debris. There was the sound of screams, audible even over the crackling energy of the projector and the other-worldly sounds coming from the armour slab.

The TDV pilots were dead, and the vehicle had come loose from its moorings.

Chau picked himself up. Natasha managed to get to her feet. There was a sharp piece of metal protruding from her stomach. She gave a groan and collapsed against Chau.

"Huh," said Chau.

There was a sudden crack from the armour. And then the portal was open. It was like a tunnel, a twisted path of jagged edges. Leading to the Anteverse.

And the room was filled by a hurricane wind, sweeping into the portal. Everything was being pulled in. The TDV began to slide across the floor, and in a moment had vanished through the hole.

Hermann and Dee had been blown off their feet. Now the mighty suction began to pull them in. Dee was closer to it. Hermann grabbed hold of her, and held onto the edge of a pillar with his other hand. He shouted with the strain.

Newton and Elle came out from behind the console, which had protected them from the blasts.

Newton saw Hermann lose his grip on the pillar. He leaped forward, stretching out his own arm.

"_Gotcha!"_

"Maybe," said Hermann. "But who has you?"

Elle grasped her husband's arm, reaching back to grasp a metal bar protruding from a wrecked console.

The four of them were in a chain, slowly being pulled towards the roaring, crackling Breach.

Newton looked around the shattered room.

He saw Chau, carrying the injured Natasha, making his way into an adjoining room, pushing his way against the tide. There was no sign on Hyram Forsythe. Ursu was dead, electrocuted. All of Chau's men, and all of the Churchers, were dead.

He looked at his wife. Her eyes were closed as she concentrated on holding on, fighting against the pressure.

He heard Dee speaking to Hermann. "I … can't hold … on," she was saying. "You'll be pulled in too. You have to let me go."

"Never," said Hermann, although his face was red with strain and his fingers were white.

But then Dee slipped from his grip. In a moment, she was gone.

Hermann looked at Newton, aghast.

And then he let go of Newton's hand. He vanished through the portal.

"_No!"_ shouted Newton.

With only Newton's weight to hold, Elle managed to haul both him and herself to safety. They crawled across the room until they were away from the worst of the suction. They struggled to their feet, and they ran after Chau. Newton glanced back: the portal was growing larger and larger. It now encompassed the whole wall, and showed no signs of diminishing, fed by the stream of power from the projector.

There was a sudden shout of pain: Natasha. Chau had pulled the spike of metal from her. There was a gush of blood.

"You idiot!" said Newton to Chau. He punched him.

"You deserve that," groaned Natasha. Chau had put her on a desk.

Chau rubbed his jaw. "Maybe," he said.

"Could have been worse," said Elle. "If it had been me that hit you, you'd probably be dead." She tore a sleeve from her Ranger jacket and used it to bandage Natasha, putting pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding.

"Anyway, bright boy," said Chau to Newton. "What happens now?"

"Now, the portal will just keep growing until the planet collapses into it," said Newton. "We all die. Everything dies."

"Oh," said Chau.

"But if you shut off the reactor, that will shut off the projector thing, and then the portal should seal itself, since it is so unstable," said Newton. "So I suggest you do that as quickly as possible."

"How should I know how to do that?" said Chau. "I have people for that. Had."

"Newt, can you do it?" said Elle.

Newton ran his fingers through his hair. "I haven't been in one of these things for twenty years or more," he said. "I'm just as likely to blow us all up."

"Don't see many alternatives," said Natasha.

Newton stared at the other three. "Okay," he said. "The control room is shot but there should be a set of secondary by-pass controls somewhere, hooked directly to the reactor. We need to find that."

"How about this?" said Elle, pointing to a complex map on the wall. It seemed to show the layout of the facility.

"That's great," said Newton. "But it's in Japanese. I don't read Japanese."

"I do," said Natasha.

They helped her off the desk and to the map. She looked at it.

"Here," she said, pointing. "Not far. Down this corridor, take the second left, third door along, the by-pass controls are right over the reactor."

"Come on," said Newton to Chau.

"Hey, I don't do that sort of thing," said Chau.

"You got us into this, you can help get us out," said Elle. She drew her gun. "Or I can just shoot you here. Which, now I think about it, would be my preference."

"Okay, okay, don't get twitchy," said Chau.

The three of them ran for the secondary control room. Natasha was clearly in no shape for running.

"Let's hope Natasha read the directions right," said Newton.

"She's a very competent gal," said Chau.

"She loves you," said Elle. "Although I can't think why."

They reached the control room. The floor was throbbing with the energy from the reactor below them.

"Okay, this is the same layout as the one I worked in in Germany when I did my research internship," said Newton. "There should be two levers and a central control." He pointed; there were levers, on either side of the room. The system was designed to require several people, acting together. Elle and Chau each ran to one as Newton sat down at the computer console and began to punch buttons. He managed to call up a set of instructions in English.

"Just a … give me a … let me see … " he said, scrolling through screens.

"World likely to end pretty soon," said Elle. "No pressure though, sweetie."

"Got it!" said Newton. He typed in a series of commands. "Ready … now!" he said.

Elle and Chau pulled their levers.

A few seconds ticked by. Nothing.

Then the throb from the reactor began to slow, and diminish in intensity.

Newton sagged back in the chair. "That's it," he said. "It will shut itself down now."

"Wait a minute," said Chau. "Natasha _whats_ me!?"

"Ask her yourself," said Elle, as they began to walk back to the room where they had left her.

They found her, and Elle did her best to re-bandage the wound. It was bad but not fatal, after Elle's emergency treatment.

"Huh," said Chau to Natasha. "We have to have some words, you and I."

"Yes, Hannibal, we do," she said.

They made their way into the wrecked control room. With the projector robbed of power, the Breach had fallen away. The slab of Kaiju armour, while still glowing with heat, had again become solid. The surface was glassy, like the Iceland Breach when it was closed.

"Lost the vehicle and everything," muttered Chau. "Damn, that's a lot of money." He began to collect the cilia ropes that had bound Ursu.

Newton was looking at a console. It was not an original part of the plant, but something that had been set up by Chau's techs. It was fairly undamaged.

"What's this?" he said.

"As I understand it, that was meant to communicate with the TDV when it was on the other side," said Chau. "Of course, the portal had to be open."

Newton was looking at one of the lights. It was flashing.

"Newt," said Elle, "Didn't Hermann say that even when a Breach was closed there was a small trickle of radiation? Something like that."

"Yeah, it sounds like random static," said Newton. He looked at the flashing light. "But this … doesn't look random."

The flashing stopped. Then it started again. Newton began to count. Three. One. Four. One. Five.

"Goddamn," said Newton softly. Then he shouted: "Goddamn that bastard! They're still alive! And in the vehicle!"

Elle stared at him.

"It's pi!" said Newton. "3.1415! He sent that because all he can get through is basic numbers!" He searched on the console for the transmission procedure, and found it. He began to push a button on the keyboard, again and again, in a series of pulses.

Nine. Two. Six. Five. Continuing the pi series.

Then there was a burst of static, stopping any further communication.

"Well," said Newton, "at least now they know that we heard them."

"But they're stuck there," said Natasha. "Even if the TDV is intact, it's not like they can just drive home."

Newton nodded. "Elle," he said. "If you were in Dee's place, what would you do?"

Elle considered. "I'd go for the Iceland Breach," she said.

"Yeah," said Newton. "It's the only possibility." He turned to Chau. "You have a jetcopter," he said. "And we have to get to Iceland."

END [AND TO BE CONTINUED]


End file.
